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Tuesday 4 January 2022

Foster + Partners criticises RIBA climate report over "deviation" from global treaty

The UK's largest architecture firm, Foster + Partners, has criticised a RIBA sustainability report backed by nearly 250 built environment organisations, claiming that it contradicts the watershed Paris Agreement treaty on climate change.

Foster + Partners is one of only two architecture studios among the country's top 10 largest that have failed to endorse the report – the other being Zaha Hadid Architects.

The studio told Dezeen that by calling for calculations about buildings' carbon impact to be based on whole life-cycle consumption, rather than only operational emissions data, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) report diverges from the Paris Agreement.

Signed by nearly 200 countries in 2015 and the basis for global climate negotiations at COP26, the Paris Agreement set a landmark ambition to "pursue efforts" to keep global temperature rises within 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels, with an emphasis on governments setting targets to limit their own greenhouse gas emissions.

A consumption-based approach, as advocated by the RIBA report, would instead see nations' carbon footprints measured based on the total emissions associated with the goods and services they use, not just those they directly emit.

For example, that would mean the UK would have to include the carbon impact of producing concrete manufactured by other countries but used in UK buildings – known as embodied carbon – when assessing its own progress against environmental targets.

Embodied carbon and the issue of consumption-based emissions were poorly understood until recently but became a major point of discussion in the climate debate during 2021.

RIBA report calls for whole-life carbon assessments

"At this critical moment, we are concerned that the RIBA's document Built for the Environment proposes a deviation from the Paris Agreement by its call for a change from emissions-based to consumption-based as a basis for carbon calculations," a spokesperson for Foster + Partners told Dezeen.

"This could lead to confusion and at its worst might create an opportunity for some nations to rethink their current commitments to the agreement. For this fundamental reason we have hesitated to endorse the RIBA report."

Published by industry body RIBA and pressure group Architects Declare, the report is titled "Built for the Environment" and urges governments to overhaul building codes to better regulate buildings' energy performance, as well as including targets relating to the built environment in their climate pledges.

"Failing to account for the balance of net importers and net exporters of emissions makes the context for policymaking less clear and promotes international inequality," the report argued.

"These policies have led to embodied carbon emissions rarely being accounted for, meaning that opportunities for reducing emissions from the built environment sector have been missed."

Foster + Partners said that it is "sympathetic and supportive of the overall objectives of the RIBA" and that its founder, Norman Foster, has discussed the matter with the RIBA's president, Simon Allford.

RIBA "keen to continue dialogue"

"We have followed this up with a letter setting out our concerns in more detail and offering assistance in amending, as appropriate, the relevant clauses in the report, taking a more holistic view of the process to enable change that is deliverable and sustainable in the long term," the firm added.

Allford said the issue will be discussed in "a public forum".

"I have been speaking to Lord Foster and we agree that our shared mission to decarbonise will not be successful unless we challenge others and prepare to be challenged ourselves," he told Dezeen. "We are both keen to continue the dialogue about this particular issue and bring it to a public forum. And we will."

Speaking at COP26, Foster called for "higher standards" on embodied carbon, while his studio's head of sustainability recently said it was an issue on which "the world is still catching up".

When first published on 2 November, Built for the Environment had been endorsed by around 220 organisations – but only three of the 10 largest architecture practices operating in the UK.

After the RIBA temporarily reopened endorsements amid "further positive interest", the number of signatories rose to 248 with only Foster + Partners and Zaha Hadid Architects now missing from the list among the top 10.

Architects Declare tensions

Zaha Hadid Architects, which is the country's third-largest studio, previously said its low carbon group and sustainability teams were "reviewing the report".

The firm did not respond to Dezeen's requests for comment about why it had chosen not to back the report.

Foster + Partners and Zaha Hadid Architects were part of a small group of founding members of Architects Declare in 2019, but left the network last year amid a row over their work on large airports.

The top photo is by Nigel Young courtesy of the Norman Foster Foundation.

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PARA Project designs surreal pavilion floating on a Belgian canal

American studio PARA Project has designed a wooden pavilion on a canal in Bruges, Belgium, to be an uncanny "doppelgänger" of an adjacent 15th-century canal house.

The pavilion, called Bruges Diptych, was designed as an events space for the 2021 Bruges Triennial, which for its third edition invited responses to the curatorial theme of "TraumA".

Bruges Diptych by PARA — Top image: the pavilion floats on the canal. Above: it was designed for the Bruges Triennial. Photo is by Iwan Baan

According to its curators, this was an exploration of the "hidden spaces" that reveal the reality of life behind the outward image of the city's famous medieval centre, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

"What is going on behind those stately facades?" asked the Biennial's curatorial statement. "How is the 'medieval city' actually being experienced and lived in?"

Wooden pavilion by PARA — The pavilion is split into two intersecting forms. Photo is by Jasper van het Groenewoud

PARA responded by designing a pavilion with a form that, from a distance, appears to mimic the form and scale of the neighbouring medieval canal houses.

On closer inspection, the pavilion is split into two intersecting forms that give the illusion of being pulled apart, a conceptual response to the idea of "revealing" what lies behind the city's facades.

Inside the Bruges Diptych — It serves as an interactive events space

"The Diptych serves as an event space for the Triennale's programming, addressing issues in urban trauma, and was one of several international commissions open within the city through late fall [2021]," said the practice.

"Its brief proximity with the canal house is a study in formal estrangements," it continued. "Still, through orientation, material, scale, posture, the pavilion recognised something of itself in its new neighbour."

PARA built the pavilion from a timber frame structure

Due to the site's heritage status, the pavilion floats atop 15 connected pontoons in the canal to avoid any impact on the existing buildings, with just a slim gap between it and the adjacent canal house.

It was built from a timber frame structure, which has been left exposed internally to reveal where the roof beams of the pavilion's two gabled forms intersect.

Large openings at one end of this timber structure frame the facade of the historic canal building, and small projecting areas on either side create spaces for looking out over the canal.

Externally, the timber frame is partially clad with plywood panels, and features on the neighbouring canal house such as the gabled dormer windows and other openings have been left as geometric outlines.

Bruges Diptych pavilion in Belgium — The pavilion floats on pontoons. Photo is by Iwan Baan

This creates the illusion that the Bruges Diptych is a doppelgänger, a double, of the existing buildings.

Thin mirrors installed on the interior columns add to the surreal feel of the pavilion, reflecting fragments of the historic surroundings through the space.

Wooden beams — Bruges Diptych has been left exposed internally. Photo is by Iwan Baan

PARA Project was founded by Jon Lott in 2007 and has offices in New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lott is also a cofounding member of Collective-LOK, with which his previous projects include a flexible home for the Val Alen Institute in New York.

The photography is by Stijn Bollaert unless otherwise stated.

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Adjaye Associates completes rose-hued cultural hub in Florida

Image of the three structures at Winter Park Library & Events Center

British architecture firm Adjaye Associates has designed a collection of pigmented-concrete pavilions in Winter Park, Florida, to house a library and an events centre.

Located on the northwestern corner of the 23-acre (9.3 hectares) Martin Luther King, Jr. Park in Florida, the Winter Park Library and Events Center comprises three pavilions and was described as a "micro-village" by Adjaye Associates.

Image of Winter Park Library & Events Center by a lake — Winter Park Library and Events Center is a cultural hub in Florida that was designed by Adjaye Associates

The cultural hub, which replaced an existing civic centre, was developed as part of an extensive revitalisation of the park and first announced in 2017.

It comprises a 35,155 square-foot (3,266 square-metre) library, an 18,200 square-foot (1,690 square-metre) events centre and a 2,457 square-foot (228 square-metre) Porte Cochère, a portico-style canopy that will be used as a pick-up and drop-off point.

Image of the tapering walls at Winter Park Library & Events Center — The three structures were constructed using pigmented concrete

The pavilions were designed as square and rectangular buildings with exterior walls that are angled inwards at their base. Large vaulted arches on the sides of the buildings provide views from the interior across to the parkland.

Materials used were locally sourced, with the precast concrete used across the facade sourced from within 25 miles of the site.

Image of the library at Winter Park Library & Events Center — Vaulted arches were fitted with large windows

The project's design also references its surroundings, with the vaulted arches informed by the park's plant life and local architecture.

"Arches, inspired both by local fauna and the region's vernacular architecture, establish the form of the pavilions, with vaulted rooflines and sweeping windows creating a porous relationship between interior and exterior, drawing natural light deep into the buildings," said Adjaye Associates.

Winter Park Library & Events Center is a cultural hub in Florida that was designed by Adjaye Associates — The events centre features space for performances

The two-storey library houses collection spaces, a computer lab, an indoor auditorium, a recording studio and youth spaces. It has an open-plan design to aid accessibility throughout and four timber-lined cores that hold archival collections, reading rooms and support zones.

The events centre contains a rooftop terrace and a large auditorium surrounded by flexible open spaces, as well as an amphitheatre and a rooftop meeting room.

Dramatic black-painted spiral staircases sit at the centre of each structure, contrasting against red-painted walls and connecting the upper levels of the buildings.

Rose-pigmented concrete covers the ceiling above the event centre and the library's mezzanine-style second floor, tying the interior of the buildings together with the exterior walls.

Image of a spiral staircase at Winter Park Library & Events Center — The cultural hub was informed by local architecture

The event centre rooftop terrace overlooks the park, as well as a nearby lake and the concrete embossed roofline of the adjacent library and Porte Cochère.

"As an ensemble, the Winter Park Library and Events Center comes together as a space of social gathering, intellectual nourishment, and enhanced connection to its natural tropical context," the practice said.

Interior image at Winter Park Library & Events Center — Rose-coloured concrete covers the events centre ceiling

The Porte Cochère pavilion is situated beside the events centre and library and has the same rose-pigmented concrete material palette and a similar tapered, square form.

Unlike the library and events spaces, however, the pavilion has no glazing between its vaulted arches. Instead, it functions as an open canopy under which visitors can rest. A large circular opening pierces the roof of the pavilion, adding a sculptural quality.

Image of the pavilion at Winter Park Library & Events Center — Materials and concrete used at the cultural hub were sourced locally

The structures were designed with large overhangs to ensure visitors are given shade from the Florida sun, while an on-site solar energy system is projected to produce around 37,865-kilowatt-hours of energy annually.

The project also has a stormwater irrigation system that lets the stormwater filter through its parking lot structure, before being collected in a nearby lake and reused to water the landscape around the buildings.

Other red-hued projects by Adjaye Associates include the proposed campus for The Africa Institute in downtown Sharjah, UAE, and eight rammed-earth domes that the practice designed for the Thabo Mbeki Presidential Library in South Africa.

Photography is by Dror Baldinger.

Project credits:

Design architect: Adjaye Associates
Architect of record: HuntonBrady Architects
Acoustical design: Gary Seibein
Civil engineer and landscape architect: Land Design
Envelope consultant: Thornton Tomasetti
Food service design: Phil Bean
General contractor: Brasfield & Gorrie
Owner’s representative: The Pizzutti Companies
Signage consultant: Poblocki
Structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection engineer + audio visual and security: TLC Engineering

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Framework develops modular laptop that users can fix and upgrade themselves

Hands putting together a modular Framework laptop

American technology company Framework has designed a laptop with modular components that can be repaired and replaced to increase the product's lifespan while reducing e-waste.

The Framework laptop is available in either a preassembled or a DIY version that customers can assemble themselves. It comes with a screwdriver and spudger to allow owners to easily customise, upgrade and repair their device.

Individual components such as the motherboard can be repurchased, reused or broken down and recycled, to help facilitate a more circular economic system.

Hands holding the motherboard of the modular Framework laptop — The modular Framework laptop is designed to be disassembled

Framework CEO Nirav Patel said the company's ultimate aim is to tackle the mounting problem of electronic waste.

"We've gone from 44.4 million tonnes of e-waste per year in 2014 to 53.6 million tonnes in 2019," he told Dezeen. "As an industry, we can't keep moving in this direction."

Rather than just focusing on recycling, Framework hopes to combat this issue by helping consumers to generate less waste and making products that last longer than traditional mass-market devices, which Patel describes as "disposable one-offs".

Flatlay of the constituent components of a modular laptop including the keyboard and motherboard — Each component has a QR code directing users to instructions and replacement parts

The lightweight laptop, which is the brand's debut product, features a 16-millimetre-thick, 13.5-inch screen housed inside a casing made from 50 per cent post-consumer recycled (PCR) aluminium.

Framework's Expansion Card system allows buyers to customise the laptop with their choice of ports, from USB to HDMI, which can sit on either side.

By loosening five small screws on the underside of the laptop, the keyboard section can be removed to reveal the device's insides.

Hands removing the keyboard from a Framework laptop — The keyboard is removed to reveal the laptop's insides

The laptop's 55-watt-hour battery and motherboard can then be taken out and repaired. Alternatively, the motherboard can be replaced and reused as a single-board computer (SBC) for other DIY projects.

Each component is emblazoned with a QR code that directs users to step-by-step instructions for repair or replacement, as well as a webpage where they can order the spare part from Framework's marketplace.

Currently on display as part of the Waste Age exhibition at London's Design Museum, the laptop is one of a growing cohort of devices, including the modular Fairphone, that recognise consumers' "right to repair".

"We believe each consumer should have the fundamental right and ability to repair any product they purchase," Patel explained.

"We all have that drawer of shame of devices that are broken or have dead batteries or couldn't get that latest software update. None of us want that, and the right to repair is an essential part of solving it."

Exchangeable ports on a modular laptop — Users can choose between four different exchangeable ports

Both the European Union and the United Kingdom have passed some version of the right to repair into law, but laptops and smartphones have so far been excluded from this kind of regulation.

As a result, Patel says major technology companies have gotten away with doing the bare minimum.

Close-up shot of person coding on a Framework laptop — The laptop just became available for pre-order in the UK

"We are seeing consumer demand and regulatory pressure starting to push some of the lowest hanging improvements, like Apple's recent announcement of making some replacement parts available to repair shops and end consumers," he explained.

"Big companies aren't in the habit of making changes to their products that risk reducing revenue. So realistically, deeper modularity requires business model transformation to align the incentives around product longevity."

All photographs are courtesy of Framework.

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The Whale apartment in Paris riffs on art deco design

White armchair under spherical pendant lights in interior of The Whale apartment in Paris designed by Clément Lesnoff-Rocard

Mirror, brass and simple geometries feature inside this Parisian apartment by local architect Clément Lesnoff-Rocard, which offers an understated take on art deco.

The 65-square-metre flat, nicknamed The Whale, is tucked away in the basement of a residential building in the city's 16th arrondissement.

According to Lesnoff-Rocard, the apartment had undergone a renovation in recent years, leaving it with "perfectly tasteless" interiors that were a pastiche of the building's original art deco style.

Most of the rooms also seemed dark and cramped, the architect explained, with unsightly plasterboard used to conceal the home's technical systems.

Concrete structural beams and column next to black watering can in The Whale apartment — Knocking through a false ceiling revealed the apartment's concrete framework

Given carte blanche by the client, Lesnoff-Rocard completely stripped back the apartment by rendering a majority of its surfaces white and tearing down its false ceiling, revealing a network of unexpectedly chunky concrete beams.

"The disproportion between the enormous size of these structural elements and the smallness of this apartment sent the space to a much larger dimension," he explained.

"It's like we were hidden inside a much larger, surreal animal."

This contrast in scale is what ultimately gave the project its name, The Whale.

Brass wardrobe next to mirrored door and baby blue marble column in Paris flat by Clément Lesnoff-Rocard — Marble, mirror and brass are used across the apartment's standout features

Lesnoff-Rocard used brass, mirrors, coloured marble and geometric shapes to subtly incorporate the building's art deco beginnings into the interior.

"My first intuition was obviously to work from the DNA of art deco, not by literally copying it like the previous renovation had done but by questioning it in today's context," he explained.

The doors that lead through to the sleeping quarters are clad in mirrored panels while storage cabinets are crafted from reflective brass and one of the structural columns has been replaced with a block of pale blue marble.

In the living room, spherical pendant lights with half white, half black shades have been suspended from wires strung across the ceiling.

Baby blue marble counter in front of gridded partitions in interior of The Whale apartment — The kitchen can be found behind gridded partitions

Behind graphic gridded partitions lies the kitchen, where the same blue marble has been used to create a breakfast island.

A number of features in the apartment also nod back to the project's name. Among them is a circular shuttered window connecting two of the rooms, which can be opened and closed to "blink" like a huge whale's eye.

Circular interior window on top of mirrored wall panels in Paris flat designed by Clément Lesnoff-Rocard — A shuttered circular opening is meant to resemble a whale's eye

Clément Lesnoff-Rocard established his eponymous studio in 2015.

Other projects by the architect include The Island, a double-height home in the Parisian neighbourhood of La Défense that is arranged around a central courtyard.

The photography is by Simone Bossi.

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